In the days of Prohibition, thirsty men and women used a secret knock to enter speakeasies. Occasionally, a nefarious sort who'd been rejected from the club would study the secret knock from afar and use it to gain admission.Thanks to new research from Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab, secret knocks may be on their way to your shared online accounts. But this time around, machine learning will ensure that no unwanted onlookers use that knock to gain access to your information.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE Lab are rolling out new features in Smell PGH, a smartphone app that helps Pittsburgh area residents collectively report foul odors and alert each other to suspicious smells that waft through city neighborhoods and suburbs.

Jesse Dunietz, a Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Science Department, will spend 10 weeks this summer at the New York offices of Scientific American magazine as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media fellow.

A new interactive design tool developed by Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute enables both novices and experts to build customized legged or wheeled robots using 3D-printed components and off-the-shelf actuators.